


Thinking Out Loud

by DeyaAmaya



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, that's all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-15 21:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17536913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeyaAmaya/pseuds/DeyaAmaya
Summary: It might seem presumptuous, needy, arrogant even. But the truth of it tastes sweet and explosive on his tongue.'I love you too.'





	Thinking Out Loud

**Author's Note:**

> My last entry for the Neilmas 2019. This is just self indulgent fluff. Un-beta-ed, as usual.

Before Palmetto, Neil's life could be compacted into one word.  
  
'Survival'  
  
Anything not useful for survival was luxury at best and dangerous at worst. Band t-shirts? Too Noticeable. Sweets? Too expensive. Books? Too heavy. Love? _Don't even dream about it, Abram._  
  
After Palmetto, after The Nest and Baltimore and Ichirou, Neil is no longer surviving. He's living. He's sleeping in, wearing new clothes, tasting Andrew's coffee when he doesn't add too much sugar in it.  
  
Neil bites his lips and pours a few more sugar cubes into Andrew's coffee. The winter sunlight is still too weak to pierce through his warm thoughts. He sips the coffee again.  
  
_Ugh._  
  
Well, it's perfect for Andrew.  
  
When he carries his own and Andrew's coffee upstairs, he can still hear Nicky's snore and Aaron's muted puttering in his room. Andrew is waiting in their bed with dandelion hair and face puffy with sleep. He takes the mug from Neil's hand without a word, face scrunching up.  
  
'Where's the sugar pot?'  
  
'I poured all of it in your coffee.'  
  
Andrew looks mildly sceptical, but he sips the coffee with a resigned sigh. Surprise flutters in his eyes a second later, and he opens his eyes fully. Neil grins at him.  
  
'Told 'ya.'  
  
Andrew grunts a bit when Neil drops on the bed besides him, leaning almost all of his weight on Andrew. Touches like these have been granted non-verbally for almost a year now. Neil secretly likes that, being allowed to touch someone who shies away from everyone else. He thinks it could be seen as selfish, maybe. But he's allowed to be selfish now. That's a part of living.  
  
He's settling into the blankets and Andrew's warmth so well that sleep almost catches up to him again. The brush of warm lips against his temple is a delicious shock. He almost misses the quiet words.  
  
'Thank you'.  
  
                                                                                                                  ----------------  
  
The words don't dissipate even when the snow starts to thaw and sunlight is back in full force. They make a nest in Neil's mind, heavy, uncompromising, and warm. Very warm. Neil feels breathless when he thinks back to Andrew's voice in that moment. He thinks of it so often that it becomes a problem.  
  
'Neil, Honey, could you stop thinking about sex and concentrate? I'm having a crisis here!'  
  
Neil bites his lip and goes back to looking through Allison's stash of Nail Polish. He picks up a glass jar of purple glitter and hands it to her.  
  
'Wasn't thinking about sex.' he corrects her.  
  
Allison scrunches up her face. Without makeup, her face looks so much like a child's. 'Exy, then?'  
  
Neil rolls his eyes. 'Just, just Andrew.'  
  
Allison stares at him for a long while. It's uncomfortable.  
  
'What?'  
  
'You're in love with the M- with Minyard?'  
  
_Love???_  
  
'I am?' Neil asks her instead. He doesn't know if that's right or wrong. But the breathlessness is back in his lungs again.  
  
'I-, he stands up in a daze. 'I think I need to go.'  
  
                                                                                                                       -----------------  
  
He spends the day going through drill after drill trying to untangle the answer. It's not helpful.  
  
When Andrew comes to collect him for dinner,  he's still no closer to an answer.  
  
Andrew hates vegetables, but he makes it for Neil anyway. He drops Neil into a bath with some fancy bath bomb stolen from Nicky's stash and helps him to dry off later. Neil feels his eyes dropping even as he's walking into the bedroom.  
  
The last thing he remembers before sleep claims him is a kiss between the knife scars criss crossing his face, and a hushed ''Good night,  Abram.'  
  
                                                                                                                    ----------------------  
  
Talking to Matt, Dan or Nicky about this would be utterly useless, even Neil knows that. They would probably scream in delight and wax poetic about love's....   _loveliness_. Aaron is out of the question. Neil isn't THAT desperate. But he's desperate enough to broach the topic with Kevin, if only because he thinks Kevin is more like him and Andrew than anyone else in the team. Anyone else, even Aaron.  
  
They're taking a drink break during a night practice when Neil asks him. Kevin is silent for a few seconds. He's practically sweating awkwardness. Did he not hear Neil properly?  
  
'I said, do you think I'm in love with Andrew?'  
  
'How the fuck should I know? He's your boyfriend, not mine!'  
  
But then he shifts and sits facing Neil, seemingly thinking about it.  
  
'I don't know what you think love is. It's not the same for us, not the same as... as normal people. When I was in the nest... there was nothing good, nothing to hope for, nothing to be happy for. You've been there, you know what it's like.  
  
But I had Thea, and I had Jean. And they're the only reason I'm not as twisted as Riko right now. If that's not love, I don't know what is.'  
  
Neil notices in his peripheral vision that Andrew is walking down the steps, interpreting their long break as a signal that playtime is over. Neil suddenly feels too shy to face him. He scrambles up and starts to arrange the cones for another drill. The hand on his shoulder stops him.  
  
'I'm just saying, Neil. We had to become monsters. That's what we are. But if he makes you feel like a human, then-'  
  
Andrew hammering at the court door cuts him off. But Neil thinks he's heard enough.  
  
Enough to finally understand.  
  
\-----------------  
  
Neil doesn't know how this happened.  
  
It was a normal Wednesday night, the outdoors chilly. Classes and practice were easy. Nothing out of the ordinary happened all day, all evening.  
  
It started just around bedtime. Somehow changing into sleep clothes had turned into a pillow war, with not only pillows but hoodies, sweats, towels and even Neil's fluffy fox plushie. Laughter bubbled up and spills out, and Neil is lying down clutching a pillow and giggling like a maniac.  
  
As his laughter winds down, he becomes acutely aware that Andrew is straddling him. And he's laughing.  
  
Neil is breathing fast, trying to come down from his childish high, shots of pure pleasure still glowing in his vein. Andrew meets his eyes unflinching, his eyes wrinkled at the corners, breathing just as uncontrolled as Neil's.  
  
Slowly, he lowers himself on the bed, gathering Neil in his arms, holding his eyes all the while.  
  
Neil is breathless again, and it has nothing to do with their mock fight just now. Andrew's eyes are warm, and Neil wants to bask in it.  
  
The touches start soft, light as a feather and stay that way. Fingertips gliding across his scars on one cheek, than the other, gliding over his eyebrows,  trailing down his nose. Andrew's lips follow just after, not kissing, just brushing over his again and again and again. Neil twines his fingers into the soft blond curls.  
  
Neil thinks he knows, now.  
  
He knows what Kevin meant.  
  
He knows what Nicky talks about when he's gushing about Erik.  
  
He knows what all those love songs on the radio tries to hard to articulate.  
  
He knows what Andrew's 'Thank you' and 'Good night' and 'Abram' and 'Yes or No' mean. He knows what the kisses and the cigarettes and the keys mean.  
  
Neil waits for Andrew's permission. As soon as it's granted, he puts the whole force of his feelings into the kiss. It's slow, tender and yet desperate. It makes Andrew kiss back just as hard.  
  
Neil pulls back, only to be wrapped tighter into Andrew. After the kiss, there perhaps isn't any need to say it. It might seem presumptuous, needy, arrogant even. But the truth of it tastes sweet and explosive on his tongue.  
  
'I love you too.'

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on Tumblr. I'm Andreil-Minyasten


End file.
